Wikipedia seeks to protect against vandalism

Citing a recent example of vandalism, [Wikipedia founder Jimmy] Wales recalled how following the election of the new Pope Benedict in April, a user substituted the pontiff’s photo on the Wikipedia site with that of the evil emperor from the Star Wars film series.

Are you laughing? I’m laughing.

But we might not find it so amusing if we were trying to build credibility for “Wikipedia, the Web encyclopaedia written and edited by Internet users from all over the world.” Indeed, for Wales, it is no laughing matter, who is looking at a few options, including freezing “the pages whose quality is undisputed” and “[r]estricting access to entries particularly susceptible to unwanted attention.” Wales is trying to “find a balance between protecting information from abuse and providing open access to improve entries.”